The Middle Kingdom (75 page)

He smiled. Wang
Ti would have liked to see this. She had always said she would love
to live outside, beneath the sun and the stars, her feet planted
firmly on the black earth. As their forefathers had once lived.

For a moment
Chen's smile broadened, thinking of her and Jyan and the child to
come, then his face cleared as he put all thought of her behind. He
was Tong Chou now and had no family. Tong Chou, demoted from the
levels. Tong Chou. Until this was over.

The crowd
slowed. Another line formed. Chen waited, patient, knowing that
patience alone would carry him through the coming days. When he came
to the barrier a guard babbled at him in
Kua-yu.
He shook his
head. "I'm new," he said. "I only speak English. You
know,
Ying Kuo."

The guard
laughed and turned to say something to one of his fellows, again in
Mandarin. The other guard laughed and looked Chen up and down, then
said something that made the first guard laugh crudely. They were
both
Hung Moo
.

He handed the
guard his permit, then waited while the man scrutinized it thoroughly
and, with a show of self-importance, used his comset to double-check.
He seemed almost disappointed to find nothing wrong with it.

"Take care,
Han," the guard said, thrusting his card back at him.

He moved on,
keeping his head down, following the flow.

"Chiao
shen me
ming
tsu?"

Chen looked up,
expecting another guard, but the young man who had addressed him wore
the drab brown of a field-worker. Moreover, he was Hung
Mao.
The
first Hung Moo he had seen here who was not a guard.

He looked the
youth up and down, then answered him. "I'm sorry. My Mandarin is
very poor."

The young man
had a long face and round, watery blue eyes. His hair was dark but
wispy and his mouth was crooked, as if he had suffered a stroke. But
he was far too young, too fit, to be suffering from heart troubles.
The crooked mouth smiled and the eyes gave Chen the same scrutiny
Chen had given him.

"I'm
Pavel," the youth said, inclining his head the slightest degree.
"I was asking what they called you."

"Tong
Chou," Chen answered, then realized how easily it had come to
his lips,

Pavel took one
of his hands and turned it over, examining it. "I thought so,"
he said, returning it. "You're new to this."

Chen smiled.
There were things that could not be faked, like calluses on the
palms. "I'm a refugee from the levels," he said. "When
my father died I got into debt over his funeral. Then I got in with a
shark. You know how it is."

Pavel looked at
him a moment, his watery blue eyes trying to figure him; then his
crooked mouth smiled again. "Come on, Tong Chou. You'll need
someone to show you the ropes. There's a spare bed in our hut. You
can sleep down there."

Pavel set off at
once, moving away from the slow-moving column of new recruits. Only
as he turned did Chen notice something else about him. His back was
hunched, the spine bent unnaturally. What Chen had taken for a bow of
politeness was the young man's natural gait. Chen followed him
quickly, catching up with him. As they walked along the dirt path
Pavel began to talk, explaining how things worked on the plantation.

"How did
you know I was new?"

Pavel glanced
sideways at him. "The way you walk. The way you're wearing those
clothes. The way you squint against the sun. Oh, a hundred little
signs. What were you up above? You've strong hands. They're not an
office-worker's hands."

"But not a
peasant's either?"

Pavel laughed,
throwing his head back to do so. Chen, watching him, decided he liked
the youth. He looked a dull-wit, but he was sharp. Very sharp.

"And where
are you from, Pavel?"

Pavel sniffed,
then looked away across the vast plain. "Me? I was bom here."

"Here?"

Pavel smiled
crookedly and nodded. "Here. In these fields."

Ahead of them
was a break in the green. A long black line that cut right across
their path. The dirt track led out onto a wooden bridge. Halfway
across the bridge Chen stopped, looking down.

Pavel came back
to him and looked where he was looking, as if expecting to see
something unusual in the water. "What is it?" he asked.

Chen laughed.
"Nothing. It's nothing." But he had realized that he had
never seen water flow like this before. Taps and baths and pools,
that was all he had ever seen. It had made him feel strange. Somehow
incomplete.

Pavel looked at
him, then laughed. "What did you say you were?"

They went on.
The field they had crossed had been empty, but beyond the bridge it
was different. Long lines of workers—five hundred, maybe a
thousand, to each line—were stretched out across the vast
green, hunched forward, huge wicker baskets on their backs, their
coolie hats making them seem a thousand copies of the same machine.
Yet each was a man or woman—a person, like himself.

Where the path
met another at a crossroads, a group of men were lounging by an
electric cart. They were dressed differently, in smart black trousers
and kingfisher-blue jackets. They wore black, broad-rimmed hats with
silk tassels hanging from the back and most of them had guns—
deng
rifles, Chen noted— strapped to their shoulders. As Chen
and Pavel approached, they seemed to stir expectantly.

Pavel touched
Chen's arm, his voice a whisper. "Keep your head down and keep
walking. Don't stop unless they specifically order you to."

Chen did as
Pavel said. Even so, two of the men detached themselves from the
group and came across onto the path, blocking their way. They were
big, brutal-looking men. Han, both of them.

"Who's
this, Pavel?" one of them asked.

The youth kept
his head lowered. "This is Tong Chou,
Shih
Teng. I am
taking him to register."

Teng laughed
caustically and looked at his fellow. "You're quite a bit out of
your way then, Pavel. Registration is back there, where you've just
come from. Or have they moved it since I was last there?"

There was
laughter from the men by the cart.

Chen glanced at
the youth and saw how he swallowed nervously. But he wasn't finished
yet. "Forgive me, Shift Teng. That would be so normally. But
Tong Chou is a replacement. He has been drafted to fill the place
left by Field Supervisor Sung's unfortunate death. I was told to take
him direct to Acting Supervisor Ming. Ming is to fill out a special
registration form."

Teng was silent
a moment, then he stepped aside. "Get moving, then. I want to
see you both in the fields within the hour, understand me?"

Pavel dipped his
head, then hurried on. Chen followed, keeping his eyes on the ground.

"Who were
they?" Chen asked, when they were out of hearing.

"Teng Fu
and Chang Yan. They're the Overseer's men. Chang's fairly docile.
Teng's the one you need to watch. He's a vicious piece of work.
Thinks he's something special. Fortunately he knows very little about
how this place works. But that's true of most of them. There's not
one of those guards has any brains. Providing you keep your nerve you
can convince them of anything."

Chen nodded.
"You were frightened, though. You took a risk for me. I'm
grateful for that, Pavel."

Pavel breathed
deeply. "Not for you, so much, Tong Chou, but for all of us.
They say the spirits of the dead have no shadows, but the deaths of
Field Supervisor Sung and his wife have left a darkness here that no
man can dispel."

Chen looked
thoughtfully at him. "I see."

"I'll tell
you sometime," the youth said, glancing at him.

They walked on.
Up ahead of them, maybe ten
li
or so in the distance, the
straight line of the horizon was broken by a building; a huge
three-tiered pagoda.

"What's
that?" Chen asked after a while.

Pavel didn't
even bother to look up. "That? That's the Overseer's House."

As he watched a
faint speck lifted from the fields close by the building and came
toward them. A Security cruiser. The sound of its engines followed
seconds later; muted at first, but growing louder by the moment.
Minutes later it passed overhead, the shadow of the big craft
sweeping across the fields.

Chen looked back
at the Overseer's House and nodded to himself. So that was where he
was. Well,
Skih
Bergson, he thought; I'll find out all I can
about this place. Then I'll pay you a visit. And find out if you are
who we think you are.

DEVORE LOOKED
down from the window of the craft as it swept south over the fields,
the fingers of one hand absently tracing the surface of the object in
the other.

"What is
that?"

The voice was
cold; chillingly free of intonation, but DeVore was used to it by
now. It was the voice of his dead friend.- He turned and looked at
Lehmanris albino son, then handed him the tiny rose quartz snuff
bottle.

"It was a
first-meeting gift from Douglas. He saw me admiring it."

Lehmann examined
it, then handed it back. "What did you give him?"

"I sent him
a copy of Pecorini and Shu's
The
Game
of Wei Chi.
The
Longman edition of 1929."

Lehmann was
silent a moment, considering. "It seems an odd gift. Douglas
doesn't play."

"No, but he
should. All men—men of any ability—should play."
DeVore tucked the bottle away in the pocket of his jacket. "Do
you play, Stefan?"

Lehmann turned
his head slowly, until he was facing DeVore. The albino's dead eyes
seemed to stare straight through him. "What do you think?"

DeVore smiled
coldly. "I think you do. I'd say you were a good player.
Unorthodox, but good."

Lehmann made no
reaction. He turned his head back, facing the front of the craft.

Like a machine,
DeVore thought, chilled and yet strangely delighted by the boy. I
could make something of you, given time.

They were flying
down to the Swiss Wilds, to meet Weis and see how work was going on
the first of the fortresses.

DeVore looked
back out the window. Two figures trudged along one of the paths far
below. Field-workers, their coolie hats making them seem like two
tiny black
wei chi
stones against the crisscross pattern of
the fields. Then they were gone and the craft was rising, banking to
the right.

He had been busy
since the meeting at Douglas's. The business with Lehmann's son had
taken him totally by surprise, but he had recovered quickly. Using
his contacts in Security he had had the mother traced; had
investigated her past and discovered things about her that no one in
her immediate circle knew. His man had gone to her and confronted her
with what they knew.

And now she was
his. A handle. A way, perhaps, of controlling Stefan Lehmann should
he prove troublesome.

DeVore smiled
and turned back to the youth. "Perhaps we should play a game
sometime?"

Lehmann did not
even look at him. "No."

DeVore studied
the youth a moment, then looked away. So he understands, he thought.
He knows how much of a man's character is reflected in the mirror of
the board, the stones. Yet his refusal says a lot about him. He's
more cautious than his father. Colder. More calculating. Yes, I bet
he's very good at the game. It's a shame he won't play. It would have
been a challenge.

The journey took
them less than an hour. Weis met them in the landing dome, furred and
gloved, anxious to complete his business and get away. DeVore saw
this and decided to keep him—to play upon his fears, his
insecurity.

"You'll eat
with us, I hope,
Shih
Weis?"

He saw Weis's
inner hesitation; saw how he assessed the possible damage of a
refusal and weighed it against his own discomfort. A banker. Always,
first and foremost, a banker.

"Well?"
DeVore insisted, loading the scales against refusal.

"I have a
meeting at six."

It was just
after one. DeVore took his elbow lightly and turned him toward the
exit. "Then we have plenty of time, eh? Come. I don't know about
you,
Shih
Weis, but I'm famished."

They were high
up, almost thirteen thousand feet, and it was cold outside the dome
of the landing platform, the sun lost behind thick cloud cover.
Landeck Base was some way above them on the mountainside, a vast,
flattened hemisphere, its brilliant whiteness blending with the snow
and ice surrounding it. Beneath its cover, work had begun already on
the fortress.

"It's a
beautiful sight, don't you think, Major?" Weis said as he
stepped out onto the snow, his breath pluming in the chill air.

DeVore smiled,
then looked about him. "You're right, Weis," he said,
noting how Weis had used his real identity yet again. "It is
beautiful." But he knew Weis was talking about the base up ahead
of them, not the natural beauty of their surroundings.

They were on the
eastern slope of a great glacial valley—a huge trench more than
two
li
deep and "one across. It ran northwest, ringed on
all sides by the brutal shapes of mountains. Cloud obscured the
distance, but it could not diminish the purity of the place. This
land was untouched, elemental. He felt at home here.

He stopped in
the snowfield just beneath the base and studied the great shieldlike
dome, thinking of the seven great Security garrisons ringing the
Swiss Wilds, like seven black stones placed on a giant board. The
T'ang's handicap. He laughed softly. Well, now he had placed the
first white stone. The great game had begun.

Guards wearing
full snow camouflage let them inside then searched them. DeVore
submitted patiently, smiling at the guard when he handed back the
tiny snuff bottle. Only Weis seemed upset by the routine.